How do I get started with Staging?

You’ll find the switch to enable and disable Staging under the Advanced tab of the site’s Flywheel dashboard. Toggle that switch on to get Staging set up for your site!

It may take a few minutes to get Staging ready, particularly if you have a large site. Once setup is complete, you’ll have a new Staging tab in your site’s Flywheel dashboard. Click that new tab to see all the info and options related to your new staging site.

How do I access my staging site?

You can access your staging site at the URL listed in the Staging tab. You’ll still log in to WordPress exactly the same way, using the same credentials as on the live site.

What about SFTP?

When you connect via SFTP, you’ll see a new folder with the same name as your original site, only appended with “_staging”.
 

Privacy Mode

Because you don’t want search bots crawling your staging site or visitors seeing it while you’re still working on it, the staging site is protected by a Privacy Mode. The username and password can be found in the Staging tab, and they’ll be identical to the Privacy Mode username and password on the live site.
 

Once Staging is active

Now you’re up and running! Feel free to change and experiment, nothing you do in Staging will affect the live site until and unless you press the “Move staging changes to live site” button located on the Staging tab.

If you’ve pushed your changes to the Live site and are ready to switch off the Staging site, head back to the Advanced tab of the site’s dashboard to disable Staging.
 

Learn more about Staging

If you’d like to learn a little more about the best way to use staging, check out this article. And if you’re curious about how to push your changes when you’re ready, we’ve got an article for that, too.